Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
